[pylon]

Can I give you guys a few tips in here.

You are over thinking it. There is no Jedi mind tricks when it comes to negotiating.

Step 1- Carproof the car and make sure it is clean. If it is a dealer, they will likely have one handy. Anything under 3k in damage is acceptable IMO.

Step 2- Determine what you are willing to pay including all taxes and fees. Look around online and see what the average market value is to determine it.

Step 3- Make that offer and stick to it. You will find out how good your offer is when you are 10 feet from the exit door of the dealership.

Black book is useless to buyers, as it is a tool for dealers to determine wholesale cost. However dealers are moving away from black book, and are using programs that monitor dealer websites, and online classifieds to determine real market value, and the wholesale costs are backed up from that. On our lot, we spend and average of $2500/car reconditioning and adding Certified warranty. So even if we buy it at book, negotiating from it is useless unless you know what the dealer spent on top of that.

Some people have this incredible adversity to car dealers, or any other business for that matter making money. Car dealers do not have a Salvation Army or United Way sign out front. We are not living in Soviet Calgary where every 10 years you get a state issued Lada Niva at a fair price to appease the Mother Land. They are still businesses entitled to profit. They are incredibly expensive to run with very small margins. So you know, the average margin, industry wide in Canada is roughly 5% on a new or used vehicle sale. In other words, the government is making more than the car dealer in most provinces. Your rage should be directed at them.

Even if the dealer paid $5 for a car you bought for $10,000 and it was still $3000 below market value, what does it matter? You still got a great deal. Also, buying from a dealer in Alberta at least, is probably the safest transaction you can make now. With AMVIC watching over the whole industry, there is zero reason for a dealer to rip you off, as the price to do it costs jobs, and tens of thousands of dollars to the dealership, and the sales person. We run under the ideal that if there is any doubt about a used car, it goes off to auction, and some scabby credit rebuilding place can deal with it.

Lastly, and this is on the last bolded point I made. If you want the best used cars, GO TO THE BIG FRANCHISED DEALERSHIPS. They cherry pick all the good stuff, and all the crap gets sent to auction or is wholesaled to the corner pot lots that "Guarantee credit Approval". Yeah you will pay a little bit more at the big dealer, but 9 times out of 10, you are getting a better used car. The subprime lots act like they are some sort of magicians, they take out cheesy ads in the Sun wearing dorky outfits with cheesy tag lines. Any decent finance manager in a big Brand Name dealership has access to all the same subprime lenders they do. But the pot lots prey on people with crap credit because they know they won't be as picky with a sketchy car, as long as they are approved. In fact in many cases, Prime lots have better resources. I have got some people approved that have been turned away from them.